For the record, when I talk about the expanse, I am not talking about United government or the protomolecule. I’m talking about exploring and expanding dominion over our solar system like the explorers heading across the seas.

I’m talking about humanity that looks up at the stars and can then go.

FIFY.

Biggest obstruction to 'one planet over' is currently government red tape.  Development of Starship/Super Heavy makes that 'one planet over' expansion much, much more possible than it was.  'Two planets over' will be more difficult.  How difficult anything past 'two planets over' is, will depend on what is developed to reach 'two planets over'.

Got a chance to see the KSC launch from the beach in Daytona the other day. I was standing out in the surf fishing.  Now I’m wishing I would have gone closer. It was pretty incredible to see and you could hear the rumble from all that distance.

Seems that the next vehicle is pretty well ready.  Is that the last of this version of super-heavy / starship?

I mean, that's kind a big one.  We would be all over the solar system within a matter of years if we came up with something like that.

Call me a pessimist, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.  The main reason is there's no economic reason to do so.  We're not running out of space on earth for people; the world population is almost certain to stop rising and start falling within a few decades.  Even if we did start running out of habitable land to live on, it would be orders of magnitude easier to move large populations to live in places like the Sahara and Antarctica instead of Mars.

But it'd be worth it if there were resources in space which we want to have on Earth.  And there's a lot of asteriods with valuable metals.  But how many people would be needed in space to supervise a bunch of robots?

Multiple planets with people living on them to prevent a cataclysm on Earth from destroying all of humanity is a laudable goal I guess, but it's a really expensive and difficult undertaking to counter a really low probability event.  And I have a feeling that getting Mars to a point where it could survive without any support from Earth is way more complicated than Elon claims it is.

Mars can serve as a staging area and processing facility for mining those valuable metals from the asteroids.  That seems the most plausible (currently) economic justification for a base on Mars.  The asteroid belt is out past Mars, so it's a shorter trip than from Earth, and fuel can be made on Mars.  Whether the mined materials end up being used on Mars, sent to Earth, the moon, or some orbital facility, is something we will have to wait and see.

It’s the great man theory of history at work. If it wasn’t for the occasional random lunatic who manages to get enough money and/or political power together to do crazy things like conquer Persia or Europe then we would probably all still be living in something akin to the medieval period.

Don't get me wrong, more power to him if that's what he wants to spend his money on.  I just think it'll be way more difficult to do than he's claiming, and there's much less of a reason to do it.

IMO if you're worried about the Earth being destroyed, it'd make more sense to spend lots of money on making Earth more survivable, like telescopes to detect asteroids and systems to redirect or destroy them; or making many deep earth habitats with the "send a series of military families to live underground for 6 months at a time" idea mentioned earlier in the thread.

It only takes one.

But even then the vast majority of humanity is still dead.  The money would be better spent making Earth more resilient IMO.

It's disgusting to think about, but if it wasn't for Musk we would still be sending our astronauts to space on a Russian rocket or just not able to put anyone in space. China would own space now without Musk.

Then there's the issue of Starship likely being the best current option (once the refueling issue is worked out) for getting anything useful to that big rock before it gets too close to Earth.

How about this? Starship will permit the construction of infrastructure that will make Earth much more resilient. Asteroid defense networks and global monitoring systems to start with. Perhaps things like vast space based solar power networks which will address both energy needs and climate change in time.

We may not go pouring off this planet in huge numbers, terraforming worlds in the next century. But Starship will allow us to do a lot of things that we couldn't do before.

Moreover this isn't an either/or deal. We aren't completely fucking bankrupt, all fighting like diseased raccoons with sharpened garbage atop a trash heap just yet. If something is a good idea and better yet, economically viable. It will happen as soon as the tech becomes available to facilitate it.

We probably shouldn't all stay on this planet forever though. If we do then in a few million years the sun will expand and envelop us. Never mind all the other things that could wipe us out. There's a whole universe out there that looks awfully devoid of life. We should probably go take it.

Redundancy is resiliency.

I'm not disagreeing with you there at all.

He must have grown up reading Clarke and Heinlein.

For a fact. That is why the Expanse is science fiction.

Commerically viable fusion solves A Lot! Of problems for the human species. While I wouldn't say we need it, it will be very handy if we get it.

That said I'm not counting on us getting it anytime soon. Most of us have probably heard the old joke that it's always just 20 years away.

@CleverNickname

A single decent sized asteroid is worth $1 Trillion in Iron Ore alone.

We could cut it up and deorbit it to Earth... But a lot of the value in an asteroid is that it's already in Space and can be used for construction in Space.

Processing metals requires some amount of gravity, whether that's artificial from spin or from Mass on a planet, at least some amount is needed.  Eventually spinning space stations will be constructed to do the processing... but we don't yet have the logistical capability to do that... Yet.

Mars is ideally placed to deorbit asteroid onto, to be processed in factories there.  Its gravity is light enough for reusable single stage to orbit rockets to bring the processed materials back up into space cheaply.  Mars Orbit will be where the spinning processing stations are be built.

If you build it they will come.  One has to Build an economy.  One does not sit around doing nothing waiting for an economy to magic itself into existence and then take part in it.

History:  The colonization of the America's.

Initially resources were extracted from the America's and sent back to Europe.  

The same will occur with asteroids. ... Iron, Gold, Platinum group metals, and rare earths are all not as rare in asteroids.  Asteroid mining will be the next gold rush.

Bases for extraction were built.  Regular people went and got jobs... More people to support those people came and lived...  Then the resources were used to build there more than they were sent back to Europe.

The same will occur at the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt.

Transport of goods and people between the America's and Europe rapidly developed from sailing vessels to steam ships in short order once bases in the America's were established.

The Same will occur for space travel between Earth, the Moon, Mars and the asteroids.

Fear of the challenges is not a valid reason to not go.
Lack of a developed space economy is not valid a reason to not go.  
Building that economy is what this is all about.

I thought we had a non-archived Artemis thread, but I guess not, so I'm posting this here.

Houston, we have a new spacesuit.

At the #IAC2024 in Milan, @Axiom_Space unveiled the flight design of its lunar spacesuit that @NASA_Astronauts will wear during the #Artemis III mission when they set foot on the Moon for the first time in over 50 years. pic.twitter.com/VtF2H3stKp

NASA Artemis  (@NASAArtemis) October 16, 2024

That looks....awkward.

Needs more...

Winter time, about 0800 EST.

Looking behind you would be a pain.

Maybe it has a backup camera?

the money made by selling global internet service?
thats already providing emergency coms?

Remember the USA wasn’t really colonized becuase of big $$$


It was colonized by self made refugees who ended up finding ways to make big $$$.

If you wanted land and freedom you came to the US. Most didn’t but there were enough people willing to move and risk it all for there own spot.

If technology gets a little better and the cost of moving to mars can be as small as 1,000,000. Countries will purchase tickets for their own citizens.

Brave, intelligent people will be sent by their own govts to start families.

We don't have large metropolises in Antarctica. I highly doubt people will want to colonize Mars at scale when we won't even do it in places that are 1000 times easier and less hostile than Mars.

You legally can’t do shit on Antarctica. If humans were allowed to stake a claim Antarctica would be different.

That's exactly my point(?)

The discovery of gold and the railroads (free land ten miles each way to the company if you build it!) did immense amounts for expansion. So did the Louisiana purchase and war with Mexico. The government funding for SpaceX is like the railroads.

I used to think nobody or very few would want to live in bunkers under the Martian or lunar surface or tin cans or hollowed asteroids. But look at how many people are happy cocooning in their apartments now.

Same with every desert in the world. Everyone where freedom exists is teaming with activity.


So either freedom doesn't exist in earth deserts or maybe environment has something to do with success. Environment that mars doesn't have. Im quite happy musk is doing what he's doing but let's manage our expectations a bit about mars settlement.

So making a spinning space station isn't possible yet but capturing, redirecting , deorbiting an asteroid and processing it in a martian factory while also producing enough fuel on mars to put that mass back in to orbit is.

Might be our best option for getting the materials to build those spinning space stations, since Mars is closer to the asteroid belt (less fuel required to get the ore from the asteroid belt to a place where it can be processed) and has much lower gravity (again, less fuel required).

We can probably put together a space station big enough to spin with a full g pretty easily once starship is flying regularly.

It would probably make more sense to use something like that for mars transits that just never leaves space. with starship acting as a shuttle to and from surfaces.

If we were processing materials on mars anytime in the near future it would probably make the most sense to utilize them there.

Starship will make it much easier to assemble a station similar to a bicycle wheel, with the 'tire' being the majority of the pressurized space and spokes to tie the tire to the hub/dock, but more substantial rotating stations will be limited by the problem of getting the oversize sections out of Earth's gravity well while dealing with the aerodynamic loads of our atmosphere.  They could still be made in smaller sections, but each joint is a potential leak that has to be sealed and joined with enough strength to handle the load from the pressure differential and the force from the spin.

SpaceX has already talked about building different versions - dedicated tankers, freighters, the lunar lander version...  But eventually there will have to be more specialization than that.  At some point, (assuming a pleasant surprise like a fusion drive becoming available hasn't happened) something along the line of Aldrin Cyclers will likely be needed.  That will lead to a need for craft that can transfer people and cargo between the Aldrin Cyclers and Earth orbit at this end, and between the Aldrin Cyclers and Mars orbit at the other end.  A heat shield, fins, atmospheric engines, and any form of landing gear would be extra weight to haul on those trips (burning up fuel), so it would make more sense to leave anything involving landing or atmospheric operation off of them and build orbiting transfer stations which would serve as a combination of bus station and freight terminal, with no need to spin them since they are just transfer stations.  Landers (Earth specific landers at this end, and Mars specific landers at the other end) would then handle moving people and cargo between the orbiting transfer stations and the surface.  Cargo that can be stuffed in a container with a priority of "it gets there when it gets there" could be loaded on robotic solar sail craft, if those are developed to a point where they have a purpose and can offer an alternative to sending the cargo by other means that eat up fuel.  Then there's the craft that would need to be built for getting material from the asteroid belt to Mars orbit.

Without a big technical leap in propulsion (fusion drive, warp drive, or something else), we've got quite a list of specialized craft that would make sense to be building as things move beyond the initial stages of colonizing Mars.

Most classic response for Anti-space and it has been easily debunked for decades if you did the slightest bit of research.

Eta: you sound like a climate scientist!
Hahaha, just giving you some shit.
Posters above are explaining what I was driving at with charm and knowledge.
I am only good at sarcasm.

wonder how durable is compared to the Apollo suits. One of the big problems with the moon is moon "dust", it isn't dust like we think of but actually mostly glass and it tears things up. The Apollo suits were essentially used up after just the few hours on the moon. If you want to do a long term stay you are going to have to deal with it and it is not a easy fix.

Wow.

Yes.

Capturing. Easy.  (also necessary no matter where you are)
Redirecting. Easy. (also necessary no matter where you are)
Deorbiting. Super brain dead Easy.
Processing in a gravity well. Easy.
Producing Fuel. Easy. (also necessary no matter where you are)

SpaceX's rocket will reduce the cost to get to Orbit from Earth... But Earth will always be the most expensive place to lift stuff into Orbit from.

The Moon is also a viable processing factory location.  But its gravity is pitifully low... I doubt people could live there long term.  You could do a year long "tour of duty" system without too much trouble but you definitely don't want families and kids being born there.  So your workforce will always be limited and inexperienced.

Both the Moon and Mars have the benefit of not needing to care what "waste gasses" you vent out onto their surface.  And in Mars' case any and all waste gases vented would be encouraged.


The key though is getting to orbit from Earth cheap enough to get things started.  Starship and the Super Heavy Booster are designed to do just that.  After that people will find the most efficient place to set up shop and do so.

This may be a philosophical point, but it's OK for humans to be different in the future if they need to be to prosper.  We evolved brains to be flexible, but also the other things that adapted us for the thick part of the bell curve of earth environments.  We use those brains to compensate for our weaknesses in some environments, but there might be other things that will outcompete terrestrial humans.  When big adjustments happen can be a debate, but it will happen, and has to happen for long-term spread (both lower and higher gravities).

Then think about possible impacts on intelligence of these various factors...

Where the rubber meets the RUD.  That is rubber, right?

bumping this to start a new page